Month: april 2014

Turning 15 in Peru – Quinceanera

Just finished editing around 500 pics from a party I attended last weekend. *puh*. Yes I do take a lot of pictures, I know that. Had to empty my computer on old films and audiopieces today since it didn´t fit in to my back-up due to I had to prioritize the films of my interviews with the journalists and so forth. Feels important to back-up these things. But from this I learned that is takes almost one day doing a 500 gb backup. Good to know since I tend to be a time optimist when it comes to these technical computer stuff. Well the 15 year party in Peru is what I believe is something similar to Sweet 16n in USA. I think, I´m not sure, that it has to do with being introduced to the society. This is a girl only event, boys do this when they are 18 if I understand it right, and don´t think that it is half as important then. Well, as shown by the photos it was a biiiig …

The adventure continues (interviewing for my thesis)

Met yet another environmental journalist named Barbara Fraser at the Lighthouse in Miraflores. (As I told yesterday I met Elie Gardner and Oscar Durand, multimedia journalists). A very uplifting conversation took place with a woman of great environmental knowledge and spirit. This interview is part of my master thesis as well. Stay tuned. Afterwards me and Martin had ”lunche” at Larcomar where we came across this fruit. Never had it before. The name is Grenadine. I´m not sure of the spelling, but googled it and came across similar pics so I think I did good. Always trust google right? Will get back to you with a longer photostory of my first Sweet 16n, that is a Sweet 15n in Peru. But now I am totally exhausted and need to process the discoveries of the day. Sleep tight! Katarina Canon 5D, fruit on table, 24-105 mm Canon Lens, no photo ed.

One day full of adventures.

Today I had the most exiting day. In the morning me and Martin and me took the bus to San Isidro to meet up with two environmental journalist, Elie Gardner and Oscar Durand, both with webpages in their name, for an interview for my final project of my studies. I was planning for one hour at the most, but good company made it into 3 hours! So much interesting to talk about and so much stuff for my thesis! Warm and beaten by all interesting talk me and Martin decided for a walk to the nearest restaurant and found 100% recycled sofas on the way. So fun. Of course it was necessary with a photo or two. Canon 5D, 24-105 mm, no photo editing. After a quick lunch at Pizza Hut we stayed in the cat-park once again and shared an ice-cream with this cutie. Meeting up Elia for some Artisan shopping for the family back home, we came across this carnival. So much surprises in Lima. Well we finally found Elia, checked out the Gastronomic …

Shoot better travel photographs.

For a long time I have been wanting to write something about photos. My Canon 5D Mark iii is my life, as you may know and I rarely write a post on the blog where I don´t add some photos relevant to what I am writing about. I´ve been in Peru for a while and reflected a lot on how to shoot better travel pics and wan´t to share my finds in an easy and understandable guide. Lets call it Shoot better travel photographs. It is of course useable for other stuff as well. Since this is a guide on how to shot better photographs, I assume that you already know your manual settings on your camera and where to find them, since i only know Canon models I won´t be to much help on where to find the different settings in your camera. If this becomes a problem in this guide, look at this ground course on aperture (bländare), shutterspead (slutartid), ISO-value and white balance (vit balans). Or just Google. There are thousands of …

All these western models.

Nothing wrong of being western or being white, or western white model for the matter. But they are everywhere. Why are they everywhere and why are they in Peru? Is this the last cousin of colonialism? Actually it was Martin who pointed it out. He said something like (but in Swedish) ”I think it is so sad that it is western people on the commercials, it is a bit weird”) The sad thing about the western way of looking is only this, that it is displayed everywhere and that even if the models are Brazilian or Peruvian it is the western looking models as Giselle who are the ones fronting the campaigns. It makes me feel a bit sick. When being in the north, or in the western world, this phenomenon it isn´t as evident to me as it is now. Maybe because in the north, lets say Sweden, there is a lot of western looking people. But here, not so many. So why are they everywhere on buildings then? It feels fake. That is exactly what …

10 things to do in Lima- Post 3- Ceviche

The Ceviche will probably take my life. It is Lemon/Lime and Chili (Rocoto) madness, all the ingredients for something superb. Just look at it. Well back to business, the Times list recommend La Mar, the Astrid u Gaston restaurant for Ceviche where we already went and where the above pic is from. Here it is also possible to by a book or two about the Peruvian cuisine or Ceviche. Ceviche is 8th on the Time- list and you can read about it here. The funny thing about the photo they use is that I have been in Lima for almost two months now and NEVER seen Ceviche that look like that. I might ask someone where to find it. I really wan´t to know where they found this Ceviche. 1. Cebichería La Mar Av. La Mar 770, Miraflores, Lima, Peru; 51-(0)1-421-3365 lamarcebicheria.com borrowed from the Times list. But what is so special about Ceviche anyway? Why does it deserve a fancy prancy name like Ceviche? History The history of Ceviche tells me that it is a fishcourse, yeah well, obviously …

Sustainable travel: Fritidsresor, ”Best in the class on environment?”

English, down below photo. Precis när jag skrev det förra inlägget om hållbart resande, Way out West, fick jag ett mail från Fritidsresor med namnet ”Bäst i klassen på miljö! Boka semester med grön rabatt”. Jag är ledsen Fritidsresor, men nu kommer några inte så vackra ord till en början. Hållbart resande med ett flygbolag? Va, det finns ju inte. Inte som det ser ut nu i varje fall. Tankarna nästan exploderade. Något jag verkligen går igång på är att marknadsföra sig grönt när det mer eller mindre är bluff och båg. Men det är ju såklart inte det Fritidsresor menar med sin reklam. Fritidsresor är mitt favoritresebolag och har mer eller mindre alltid varit sedan den snälla killen som hjälpte mig att boka ett superhotell i Thailand över telefonen, rekommenderade mig bort från ett familjehotell till fördelen av ett vuxenhotell för min mamma och mig för några år sedan till de bra guiderna och den bra upplevelsen på Sicilien där vi gjorde en endagsutflykt till Syracusa, Santa Lucias hemstad. Jag och Martin åkte även …

Categories is under construction.

Just so you know. I will undertake the mayor taking of recategorising my blog into English and will start soon by deleting all categories. If looking for something, use the tagcloud until I´m done in a week or two or just take a paus, reading new posts and looking out the window. Katarina Canon 5D Mark iii, 24-105 mm Canon Lens, photo editing in Lightroom.

Glad Påsk- Happy easter everybody!

  This is my second time I´m celebrating easter out of Sweden. I have also celebrated it in Greece with my relatives before. In Greece we visited neighbours and grilled a whole lamb in the garden, that is about as much I can remember. This was in 2008. In Peru I´ve learned some more. Thursday me, Elia and Robert went to the museum of gold in Lima. That was crazy, but photos weren´t allowed. Going how we passed plaza de armas, with the though of looking on some artisans and having a bite to eat. This was what we call Skärtorsdagen in Sweden, Jueves Santo in Spanishs and in English it is the Maundy Thursday. A pitcure says more than a thousand words, yes, but in this case it displays thousands of people in Lima, following the tradition this day of visiting six churches making it impossible for us to enter the center. Roberto never found a parking spot, but had to guard the car while we where eating.   This is the cathedral in …

10 things to do in Lima- Post 2- El Malecón, Miraflores

As you who follow me know, I have hanged around quite a bit in Miraflores and you may have also seen a lot of photos of a beach from up above and fantastic views over the city. This is basically what El Malecón is. A giant photo-opportunity. Basic knowledge It is a 6 mile stretch of green spaces, gardens and parks, where the best thing you can do is kiss your partner in the Parque de la Amor and watch the fantastic view. The Time list of course suggest other stuff to do as jogging, nothing I would ever do even if they payed me. A good idea that Time do point out is the possibility to rent a bike for a day. Something I haven´t done, but something smart since the stretch is so long. Those akin legs of a traveler needs som rest to. If you are not so in to bikes, maybe you like skating? 1. Parque del Amor El Malecón, Miraflores, Lima, Peru 2. Bike Tours of Lima Bolivar 150, Miraflores, Lima, Peru;51-(0)1-445-3172 or 51-(0)1-99916-64223 …

Updating the menu.

Since I basically decided to go for the english language due to my followers and interests in life I am now updating the entire blog and redoing a lot so I am sorry that half is in English and half is in Swedish. It will be like this for a while since I have to do everything manually. I might continue to write some of the post in Swedish but then I also will translate them to English. This will probably be the case if I write something that is about Sweden, like Swedish fashion or Environment or my travels in Sweden. But it seams easier that my presentation and also cathegories at least are in english since they are harder to translate than actual blogtext. Maybe one person who is english speaking and have their wordpress account in English could tell me if the first link in my upper meny to the left, which should be the Home button says Home or Hem? Katarina Ps. Soon coming up, 10 things to do in Lima, …

EU Election Assessment Team In Afghanistan- My friend and former colleague Lars Tollemark

My friend and former colleague Lars Tollemark found my blog the other day and we started talking. He are working in Kabul Afghanistan at the moment for 3 months as part of the EU Election Assessment Team. Well this is not the first time my friend does this, actually he has done it 25 times before, whereas one was assessing the election in Peru. During that time he lived in Miraflores. Kabul is a bit different and even if the work is good, there is a range of security issues in the country, he says. Lars travel with 4 lifeguards in bulletproof cars to work and wear safety vest and helmet when doing so, due to this safety issues. But where Lars lives (in the EUs own area) he is guarded by 180 Gurkha soldiers from Nepal ”.. so if feels pretty secure afterall.” he continues. Lars belongs to the EU Election Assesment Team and the work titile is Reginal Election Expert. They are 16 persons working in the team. ”We are working with evaluation the whole …

10 things to do in Lima – Post 1- Pucllana Temple

Before going out this Monday me and Martin wanted to do some touristy stuff. Thats when we googled the amazing words ”10 things to do in Lima”. We ended up with the Time list where Time listed this exactly.  The list  is found here. I have been in Lima for a while and decided after reading it, to write a post about what to do, since the different stuff listed by time, isn´t all that hot. Have they even been here or have they just googled and put a list together, I ask myself. No kidding aside, maybe I am a bit hard on Time, but I will try to go through the list since I am already here and also add to the different posts on what Time have already written. Just for fun. Please tag along! I will then later end with a list of my own. 10 things to do in Lima- MY LIST. I won´t do the time list in chronological order, just so you know since I already visited a …

Results from the poll: What do you wan´t to read about in the blog category travel?

I must say I am honored. Seven people answered the poll (or less people gave seven answers). Yey! Great success for my part who was worrying that no one would answer. And even more gladly I got a lot of ideas from this. You seem to like history/culture and food, but are not interested in where to make the best buys if I interpret this poll correctly. In an attempt to be transparent. Here comes the result. Other: 4 57%   Food and reviews of food and restaurants 2 29%   Sustainable traveling, eating, shopping etc. 1 14%   Where to make the ”best” buys 0 0%   Where to make the ”best” vintage, loppis and second hand buys 0 0%   Other: Culture and history of the place 1 History and culture 1 Landscape, Townscape, Historical Buildings, Watching people 1 All of the above! I don’t travel much so I love following these kind of blogs. 1   A photograph taken by Martin with my Canon 5D Mark iii, with my 50mm f 1.8 …